What's an all-nighter? An all-nighter is defined as a single night of total sleep deprivation. That is, 0 hours of sleep. It's a fairly common practice for students, particularly in college.
What is an All-Nighter? Pulling an all-nighter means engaging in an activity during sleep time that makes you catch little or no sleep for up to 24 hours. So if you're usually asleep from 10 pm to 6 am, you'll remain awake during an all-nighter throughout this time frame.
In sleep science, this type of extended period with zero sleep is known as total sleep deprivation. If you wake up at 8 a.m. and then pull an all-nighter, at 8 a.m. the next morning you will have experienced 24 hours of total sleep deprivation.
For a healthy person, there is unlikely to be long-term health consequences from a single all-nighter. “I think about sleep deprivation as a physiological earthquake,” Simon says. “If it's a relatively rare event… the body can recover after a couple of days."
Sleeping between 90 and 110 minutes gives your body time to complete one full sleep cycle and can minimize grogginess when you wake. But any sleep is better than not at all — even if it's a 20-minute nap.
After an all-nighter, try to give your body enough time to recover by following sleep hygiene practices such as staying active, having a nighttime routine, having light meals for dinner, and following a consistent sleep-wake time. It's important to not withhold sleep the next night after your all-nighter.
If you can't sleep, don't try to, says Michael Perlis, PhD, director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at the University of Pennsylvania. “The problem with staying in bed for any appreciable amount of time is that this reinforces sleeplessness, physiologically and psychologically,” Perlis says.
So while an all-nighter might seem like a good idea, it doesn't pay off. You'll have a tougher time forming and retaining memories -- in other words, the information you're cramming, when you're sleep deprived.
We do not recommend sleeping for only one hour at night. Some research suggests that lost sleep can take years off your life and that you may not be able to catch up on the lost hours of rest. This is because consistent sleep deprivation can cause a myriad of chronic health issues in people over time.
The best answer to this question is that some sleep is always better than none. Trying to get in a power nap or achieving that full 90-minute cycle is better for you than no sleep at all.
But is taking a quick rest - closing your eyes, putting your feet up and clearing your mind for a couple of minutes - as beneficial as getting some sleep? The concise answer is 'no'. There are numerous claims relating to the benefits of rest to mind and body. However, nothing compares to the benefit of sleep.
The longest time a human being has gone without sleep is 11 days and 25 minutes. The world record was set by … American 17-year-old Randy Gardner in 1963.
This is because our brain is constantly forming new connections while we are awake. The longer we are awake, the more active our minds become. Scientists believe that this is partly why sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression. However, there are negative outcomes of this, too.
The bottom line. If you want to change your circadian rhythms, staying up all night may not offer the most ideal solution. Pulling an all-nighter will likely just make you sleepy. Instead, you can try to fix your sleep schedule by following sleep hygiene practices like keeping your bedroom dark.
Sleep drunkenness is a sleep disorder that describes feelings of sudden action or reflex upon waking up. It's also called confusional arousal. Cleveland Clinic estimates that it happens in 1 in 7 adults, but the actual number of people can be much greater.
While sleeping in for a morning or two may help, it's often not enough. Research has shown that it can take up to four days to recover from one hour of lost sleep and up to nine days to eliminate sleep debt.